Connecticut native Sandra Champlain runs a catering business for drivers and their crews on the racing circuit. At the Mobil 1 Sports Car Grand Prix in Bowmanville, Ontario, last month she also promoted her new book "We Don't Die" and was joined by Indy car champ Bobby Rahal. Champlain will be doing a signing Aug. 24 at the Barnes & Noble in Danbury. less

Connecticut native Sandra Champlain runs a catering business for drivers and their crews on the racing circuit. At the Mobil 1 Sports Car Grand Prix in Bowmanville, Ontario, last month she also promoted her new ... more

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Sandra Champlain will sign copies of her book "We Don't Die" at the Danbury Barnes & Noble on Aug. 24 at 2 p.m.

Sandra Champlain will sign copies of her book "We Don't Die" at the Danbury Barnes & Noble on Aug. 24 at 2 p.m.

Photo: Contributed Photo

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Connecticut native to sign 'We Don't Die' in Danbury

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Devastated by the deaths of her grandmother and her father, Sandra Champlain began to search for answers about what happens when people die and how survivors can move on.

The product of the Connecticut native's journey,

"We Don't Die" (Imbue Press, $21.95), has been garnering lots of TV and print press attention, and the author will be doing a signing at the Danbury Barnes & Noble store on Saturday, Aug. 24, at 2 p.m.

Champlain's appealing, non-pushy personal exploration takes readers from spiritual retreats to seminars on how to communicate with the dead. The author describes herself as a skeptic, but she became convinced that death is not the end of our relationship with loved ones. It took Champlain several years to work up the nerve to share her story.

"... my own fear of being called crazy, weird, being laughed at, or people not wanting to be involved with me stopped me from sharing this information with you until now," she writes in the first chapter.

The author writes that she doesn't understand why people are so dismissive of the notion that there is a lot more to this world than we can immediately grasp. We benefit from modern technology that few of us understand and that our ancestors might have viewed as a form of black magic, so why are we so uptight about supernatural matters that are beyond our immediate comprehension?

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$21.95

"I remember going to Disney World when Epcot first opened and seeing the Carousel of Progress," Champlain said during a recent interview. "There was a little boy in front of a computer and they told us, `Someday there will be a computer in every household.' I couldn't believe it."

"But how much is impossible anymore?" Champlain asked, rhetorically.

"How We Die" shares the author's story of her search for answers, but it also includes a wealth of material on other sources of information that readers can explore and judge for themselves.

"My intent is that I really want people to live great lives while they are here ... the idea of life after death is the hook," the writer said. "I wrote from my heart and I was not trying to convince anybody of anything."

Champlain lives in Byfield, Mass., but still owns Kent Coffee and Chocolate Company in Kent. She and her mother, Marion, run Marion's Hospitality, which provides meals to drivers, mechanics and service people on race car tours around the country.

The writer hopes her book will allow people to talk about death and grief with their friends and loved ones. Champlain agrees that many people are reluctant to open up about the pain they endure after losing someone important to them.

"It's hard for people to talk about these things," she said, and even harder for them to discuss feelings that they still feel connected to dead loved ones. "No one wants to be laughed at."

Champlain realized grief was more complicated than she imagined when her family life began to change after the death of her father.

"The pain was terrible and there were fights with my siblings ... I knew there was more to grief than meets the eye. We just aren't educated about grief," she said.